Brandwatch vs Google Analytics | TrustRadius

What users are saying about

Score 8.8 out of 10

Based on 102 reviews and ratings

Score 8.6 out of 10

Based on 3122 reviews and ratings

Pros

The breadth of the data it captures is impressive, and you are only limited in the tool by your own knowledge of how to use the system. Therefore, if you know how to create smart, tightly structured queries, how to create smart rules to help save manual search and filing, already have a set of keywords to plug in to your query, and know how to use the more advanced chart visualizations beyond the stock ones they provide, you should be in great shape.
The range of historical data, as well as the ability to access it in detail is a definite plus that puts them above competitors if you're looking for long-term historical trends.
The visuals are basic, but look nice, and the ability to export most of the graphs and charts is very useful when putting together presentations.

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Jarad Matula, MBA

Social Media Strategist / Community Manager

Bulldog SolutionsMarketing and Advertising, 51-200 employees

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Multiple reports to see website use and behavior
Allows you to customize reports with days, weeks, months, and years
You can build out a dashboard to easily view stats from multiple websites in one place
You can share analytics reports via the dashboard, automatically emailed PDFs or in other formats

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Verified User

Professional in Professional Services

Higher Education Company, 1001-5000 employees

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Cons

Very steep learning curve- good luck training casual users on the difference between a query, a rule, a category etc
Lack of access to FULL historic data is a serious drawback- populating that data takes a minimum of 24 hours and incurs additional costs
Volume limits mean you may have to build your query to exclude mentions that may be useful in getting the full context of the situation

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Verified User

Manager in Research & Development

Public Relations and Communications Company, 201-500 employees

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Data sampling is somewhat inaccurate on the free tier - this is addressed in premium but is expensive.
Some of the UI is very similar in naming when presenting different data, some in-situ information might be useful.
Gotchas around filtering and data validation.
Implementation can be tricky, it can take a lot of time and expertise to get a full, accurate picture of your metrics.

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Verified User

Professional in Engineering

Retail Company, 201-500 employees

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Likelihood to Renew

Brandwatch 10.0

Based on 5 answers

Brandwatch is a simple tool that is easy to learn and understand. Without any rigorous training, the team can learn to use it and interpret the results in an efficient manner. It saves a lot of work and helps the team to focus on other important time consuming tasks. I would like to continue using Brandwatch.

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Verified User

Analyst in Information Technology

Information Technology and Services Company, 5001-10,000 employees

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Google Analytics 9.9

Based on 50 answers

We will continue to use Google Analytics for several reasons. It is free, which is a huge selling point. It houses all of our ecommerce stores' data, and though it can't account for refunds or fraud orders, gives us and our clients directional, real time information on individual and group store performance.

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Associate Director of Marketing

MusictodayMarketing & Advertising, 51-200 employees

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Usability

Brandwatch 6.0

Based on 5 answers

I've invited quite a few of my colleagues to try Brandwatch, and all of them were able to use its features with no assistance, and most of these had never used a social listening/monitoring tool before, or even a digital analytics tool! Brandwatch is not only easy to use, but filters, widgets, menus and other options are in intuitive places - it just works

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Social Media & Online Analyst

BTTelecommunications, 10,001+ employees

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Google Analytics 8.4

Based on 7 answers

Google Analytics provides a wealth of data, down to minute levels. That is it's greatest detriment: find the right information when you need it can be a cumbersome task. You are able to create shortcuts, however, so it can mitigate some of this problem. Google is continually refining Analytics, so I do not doubt there will be improvements

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Web Developer

PmD InteractiveInternet, 1-10 employees

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Reliability and Availability

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Google Analytics 10.0

Based on 5 answers

There are rarely any outages or application errors. If there are errors, the vast majority of the time it is user error and not the fault of Google.

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Associate Director of Marketing

MusictodayMarketing & Advertising, 51-200 employees

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Performance

Brandwatch 7.0

Based on 2 answers

Brandwatch craps out sometimes. Pages freeze, data doesn't populate for hours. It's fine if you're not in a hurry but something to keep in mind if you're working in real-time. It's not as bad as Talkwalker but it's impacted timely delivery of work for me, and one of the first things I teach when introducing the platform is the process for closing out and re-logging in to see if it unfreezes

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Verified User

Manager in Research & Development

Public Relations and Communications Company, 201-500 employees

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Google Analytics 8.0

Based on 1 answer

When creating segments, sometimes Google Analytics will take a bit or more than likely slow down older computers a bit. That said, in general google analytics is extremely reliable and is there when you need it.

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Associate Director of Marketing

MusictodayMarketing & Advertising, 51-200 employees

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Support Rating

Brandwatch 8.4

Based on 20 answers

The Brandwatch Consumer Research customer success team is outstanding. Every member of their team has been wildly helpful and remarkably pleasant. These people go above and beyond to ensure you have all the tools and help you need to find success on their platform.I had several calls where we discussed difficulties users where having on the platform that resulted in an overall improvement in reporting across the board. They didn't just answer our questions, they dug deeper to find root problems and helped us build out dashboards to alleviate them.

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Performance Marketing

Scuf GamingComputer Hardware, 51-200 employees

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Google Analytics 6.8

Based on 83 answers

The Google reps respond very quickly. However, sometimes they can overly call you to set up an apportionment. I'm very proficient and sometimes when I talk to reps, they give beginner tutorials and insights that are a waste of time. I wish Google would understand my level of expertise and assign me to a rep (long-term) that doesn't have to walk me through the basics.

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Media Director

Studio FlightMarketing & Advertising, 11-50 employees

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Online Training

Brandwatch 6.4

Based on 1 answer

good knowledge, great tips, although the program seems a bit disconnected. It could improve it they create more free webinars and a good content calendar and tackle little topics in each webinar.Their trainers are top notch and they know a lot about the tool but they fall a bit low on technical level understanding of how the tool actually works

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Luis Fernando Martinez Funes

Strategy Director

Teterita Inc.- FuneStratManagement Consulting, 1-10 employees

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Google Analytics 10.0

Based on 2 answers

love the product and training they provide for businesses of all sizes. The following list of links will help you get started with Google Analytics from setup to understanding what data is being presented by Google Analytics.

How to Use Google Analytics for Beginners – Mahalo’s how-to guide for beginners.
A beginner’s guide to Google Analytics – A free eBook walking you through Google Analytics from setup to understanding what data is being presented.
Getting to Know Your Google Analytics Dashboard – The title says it all! This is a brief post with one goal: to introduce you to the Google Analytics dashboard.
Google Analytics for Beginners: How to Make the Most of Your Traffic Reports– This guide doesn’t cover setup, but it does a great job of helping you to better understand the data being presented.
Google Analytics Video Tutorial 1: Setup – A video presentation that walks you through Google Analytics setup.
Google Analytics Video Tutorial 2: Essential Stats – A video presentation that introduces you to some of the most important data being presented in Google Analytics.

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President

Command PartnersOnline Media, 11-50 employees

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Implementation Rating

Brandwatch 9.1

Based on 4 answers

Not that I can think of.

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Edward James Bass

Co-Founder & Director

EntSightMarketing and Advertising, 1-10 employees

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Google Analytics 9.0

Based on 13 answers

I think my biggest take away from the Google Analytics implementation was that there needs to be a clear understanding of what you want to achieve and how you want to achieve it before you start. Originally the analytics were added to track visitors, but as we became more savvy with the product, we began adding more and more functionality, and defining guidelines as we went along. While not detrimental to our success, this lack of an overarching goal resulted in some minor setbacks in implementation and the collection of some messy data that is unusable.

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Joshua Van Horsen

Marketing Manager

Drury HotelsHospitality, 1001-5000 employees

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Alternatives Considered

Crimson Hexagon is more expensive than many other social media monitoring and analytics software platforms, but it definitely has the most detailed analytical capabilities when it comes to social media. It does not have traditional news media monitoring like other platforms, including Meltwater and Cision, but if you are solely looking for the best in social analytics, Crimson Hexagon may be for you.

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Sr Analytics Coordinator

City of OlatheInformation Technology and Services, 10,001+ employees

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Adobe Analytics and Google Analytics 360 are both paid/premium options for website tracking. Though there are certain use cases when these might make sense (you operate entirely in the Adobe suite, you're a massive company/site that doesn’t mind the price tag on Google Analytics 360), Google Analytics (standard) should be a no-brainer for every company out there. I’d advise still maintaining the account, even if you operate in the Adobe Suite and use Adobe Analytics, for the synergistic benefits of Google indexing/SEO.

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Thomas (TC) Riley

Senior Director, Information Services

MarketScaleMedia Production, 51-200 employees

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Scalability

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Google Analytics 9.0

Based on 1 answer

Google Analytics runs 24 hours a day and rarely do we see any issues with going down or missing particular data

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Associate Director of Marketing

MusictodayMarketing & Advertising, 51-200 employees

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Return on Investment

At a high level, the biggest impact the Brandwatch Analytics has had is giving us the ability to quantify the impact of social media for our clients. In the world of social, ROI is defined and interpreted differently across clients (particularly where it's more difficult to apply traditional ROI) - so this may mean reporting on earned media for some, while for others it's measuring increasing engagements or social mentions over time.

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Verified User

Analyst in Social Media

Marketing and Advertising Company, 201-500 employees

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It has helped us gain understanding of what is going on on our website.
It has helped us determine areas that need fixing (i.e. pages with extremely high bounce rates may need to be redone).
It has helped us understand our biggest avenues for bringing traffic to the website and business in general.
It has helped guide our website redesign.

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Director of Marketing & Analytics

SocialVenturesNon-profit Organization Management, 1-10 employees

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Screenshots

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Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

Yes

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Yes

Entry-level set up fee?

Optional

Brandwatch Editions & Modules

Edition

Pro	$800¹
Enterprise	3000+²

10k mentions
Unlimited mentions or Queries

Additional Pricing Details

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General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

Yes

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Google Analytics Editions & Modules

Edition

Google Analytics	Free
Google Analytics 360	$150,000²

none
per year

Additional Pricing Details

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